


First And Last, And First Again

by icarus_chained



Series: God Within, Goddess Without [1]
Category: African Diasporic Mythology, Hindu Mythology, Mythology Fandom, Native American/First Nations Mythology, Norse Mythology, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Death, F/M, M/M, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel, Loki, and Kali. The first and last times he saw them. </p>
<p>Goes AU from 5x19</p>
            </blockquote>





	First And Last, And First Again

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for ... well, mythology, and all its attendant screwiness. Notes at the end for specific myths used.

The first time Gabriel saw her had been in battle.

Long ago, this was. In the days when Earth was younger, less peopled, more robust. In the days when angels, even archangels, could walk the Earth in true form for days at a time, unseen and unchallenged. Free. Or so it had seemed. The days before vessels and the vast flood of humanity.

The days of a different kind of Flood.

He hadn't yet returned to Heaven after his task. Not yet. He hadn't been able to bear it, to bear the thought of it. While the waters eased, he wandered, trailing bloodied feet through the storms, in the hopes it would wash them clean, wash out the stains on his Grace, the remnants of what he'd done. Over and over, treading the Earth, washing his feet and the bloodied tips of his wings, again and again until at last the waters themselves had run dry, and he trailed the blood of children across earth once more. And still the stains would not leave. And still he could not bear to return.

Until at last, gradually, as he wandered blind and dazed, he realised that the blood upon the earth was not his, nor that of those he had slain, those he had caused to slay each other. Gradually he realised that this blood was not the blood of giants, or angels, but the blood of something else. An asura. A demon.

And not just any demon, but Raktabija. He whose blood was a seed. He who in bleeding created more of himself.

He looked up, wings stretching from horizon to horizon in readiness to move, all fear, all pity lost as he readied himself for battle. He looked up. And then ... he saw her.

Black as midnight, bathed in blood. Her tongue lolling as she devoured the blood that grew, her eyes red and laughing and glorious, her four arms flashing and gleaming like blue stones, red to the elbows with the blood of her enemies. Laughing, dancing, enraged, Kali danced upon her enemy, the Goddess of Destruction, laying low the demon that had challenged her people, her hands as red even as Gabriel's own. He saw her. He saw, and in seeing yearned. Hot, fierce. Full. He saw her, and loved.

Even as he stood, she turned to him. The field empty of all save her allies, who held back before her fury, who dared not challenge her, she turned to see the last person upon the field who was none of hers. In her dark fury, in the glow of battle, she turned to face him and lay blood-dark eyes upon him.

He fled. Instantly, instinctively. Six hundred wings beat once upon the earth, terror and power, and he became a star to escape her wrath, the blind violence of her battle form.

What? It had been different in those days, and given that the alternative would have been approaching Shiva as he lay on the field, and saying "Hey friend, I've sort of got the hots for your consort, but I've come on her at a bad time and now she means to kill me. Little help?" No. That would not have done, then. Instead, he became a star, shooting for the heavens, fleeing before her.

He became a star. The first angel ever to achieve space launch from a standing start. Later, he had been proud of that.

But for the smallest second, before the beat of his wings, before the earth fell away beneath him, he had looked at the fury running towards him. He had looked at her, and remembered. Remembered the blood on his hands, the children falling to their brothers' swords, the stains that no Flood of his Father's could wipe from his feet. He remembered hearing the screams of the father in Dudael, Azazel's screams as Raphael bound him and he felt his children die. He remembered that, and remembered the look in her eyes as she destroyed what threatened her family. For a beat before he fled, he remembered, he looked on that fury, and he _yearned_. A yearning he never fully lost, even years, centuries, millennia later, cradled in her arms.

Kali, Goddess of Destruction, Slayer of Monsters. Will you slay me too?

\---

The first time Gabriel saw him had been in prison.

This was centuries later, and he was a different person. Heaven had changed, in that time. His Father had grown silent, the messages no longer coming. His brothers had grown ... distant, distorted. Unfamiliar. Pained. So he had changed himself. Changed, and fled. To Earth, this time. To run, to hide, not from guilt or Goddesses, but from family. From pain.

He had fled to Earth, but Earth no longer bore him well. Humanity had grown too far, stretched the world too thin, and the force of his Grace then would have draw his brothers to him long before it had a chance to burn a hole in the world. So he had searched. Searched for a vessel that would bear him well. A vessel no angel would expect. A vessel that would stand the test of centuries, if need be.

And then, he had found _him_. Loki, god and giant, broken and bound, locked in darkness. Loki, writhing in agony as the poison dripped from the serpent above him, as the silent woman emptied her bowl on the stone, and wept. Loki, imprisoned, open, ready.

He stole into the cave on silent wings, a whisper of presence and Grace, and murmured a word in Sigyn's ear, so that she fell quietly into slumber where she stood, the empty bowl falling from her hand, shattering. Loki's one reprieve, broken.

"Loki," he said, quietly, and the tortured god stopped his writhing. Not for long, as the venom pitted his face, as it burned and he wrenched himself up in pain. But long enough to look, with a god's eyes, and see who had come to torment him.

"Giant-killer!" the god gasped, laughing in his face. "Giant-killer! And how are _you_ today?"

Gabriel masked his flinch, bore down and hovered above the writhing form, a dark smile curling across his face. He had no choice, now, if he was to escape. He had to do this. "I want something from you, Loki," he said, simply and quickly. "I want something from you. And in return ... in return I'll take you from here. I'll release you from this pain."

The god looked up at him, dark, clever mind ticking over beneath the pain, laughing behind his eyes. The god who had betrayed and murdered another merely for the challenge met an archangel's eyes and laughed at what he saw there. "You want my body," he whispered, rasped. "Giant-killer would walk among us, and he would use me to do it, would he?"

No point in arguing, really. Gabriel nodded. "From what I've heard, it's not the first time you have sold your body to survive," he commented dryly. "At least I'm not a _horse_."

Loki grinned at him.

"You would free me from one binding only to put me in another?" he asked, sly and desperate, probing for a weakness, a chance to strike. Gabriel gave him no quarter.

"At least this binding will not be made from the guts of your son," he said, resting a hand on the chains that bound Loki, the chains forged from the intestines of an innocent boy by vengeful gods. Loki's face turned dark.

"No," he murmured, rich and deadly. "No, it will not. But you ... What do you plan, Giant-killer? You who would wear my face. You destroy giants, and the children of giants, and now you would possess one? Why?" A low hiss, both pain and anger, and desperate calculation. "You will not bind me with the corpse of my son. But my children, my sons and daughters born of giants ... will you kill them, Giant-killer? Will you wear my face to destroy them? Is that why you are here?"

Gabriel flinched, recoiled, his Grace stuttering in shock and ancient pain. " _No_ ," he gasped. "No. Never. Not again. I will not ... I am not that thing. Not anymore. Not again. _Never!_ "

Loki looked at him, twisting himself in his chains to look back, scores cut into his cheeks from poison looking almost like the tracks of tears, red and weeping. "No," the god whispered. "No. I see you aren't."

"Help me," Gabriel whispered, desperate himself. "Share your body with me, Loki. Share with me, and I'll take you from here. And without you ... there need be no Ragnarok. No final battle. Your children ... your children need not die, need not be slain, and you ... Help me avoid my family, and I will help you save yours. Help me, Loki. Son of giants. Help me." He stopped, smiled a little. "What have you got to lose, after all?"

The god stared at him, silent and ravaged, wracked with pain, and in the bright wells of his eyes there rose a laughing, a humour, bright and dark, mischievous and terrible. "And the Giant-killer would save the Son of Giants, and become a part of him," he mused, pain and glee. "Both bound, both free. And all the world fooled by them." His face twisted, a grin, a smile. "Oh, I like that. I do like that."

Gabriel tilted his head, a little worried, but at the same time ... a dark, whispering part inside him echoed the laughter. The part that had whispered in the ears of children, and watched them fall on each other. The part that delighted in the trick, the deceit, the silent weapons more subtle than any sword. That part of him leapt at the fire in a god's eyes.

"Yes," he whispered, echoed. "So do I."

Loki grinned at him, and bucked his hips, writhing suggestively. "Then come here," the god laughed. "Come here, Giant-killer. Angel. Come here and join with me."

Gabriel grinned, a twisted pout, and shook his head in admonishment. But he came close, leaned in, lips of burning Grace pressed close to those cracked and ravaged by poison, banishing the serpent with a thought. "Don't tease," he purred, mouthing burning kisses across the damaged face, healing in his wake. "Don't tease me, Loki. You'll regret it."

"Never," the Aesir gasped, straining his bonds to arch into Gabriel, laughing darkly. "Never, Giant-killer."

Then he paused, sobered, and his eyes met Gabriel's with all the ancient power of a god, all the fury and sly cunning of the Son of Giants. "But there are things _you_ will regret, Giant-killer," he said, slowly. "If you betray me. If you harm my children. If you break our deal, once you have what you want." His face twisted, darkened. A warning. "I am no human, Giant-Killer. No innocent soul for you to destroy once I grant you permission. Should you betray me ... I will destroy you from the soul outwards. I will wrap myself within you, even as my son wraps around this world, and I will devour you from the inside out. Do you understand me, Giant-killer? Do you understand, _Gabriel_?"

Gabriel stared at him, the archangel and the Son of Giants, and nodded. "I understand," he murmured, an oath, a promise, a thrill. "I understand."

And then he reached in, leaned over, sealed Loki's mouth with his own, and plunged Grace and soul into the beating heart of a god. Into the laughing soul of a Trickster.

\---

The last time, and the first, that he saw them both, was in death.

In the end, she had not slain him. Not really. Part of him suspected that she'd known, from the very beginning, who and what he was. Part of him suspected that she'd known the blade wasn't real. The Kali he remembered, the Goddess of Destruction drenched in blood, had no need for a blade to destroy him, if she wished. She had opened him like a sacrifice to war, and closed him again like a gift to peace. Destruction and rebirth. Kali.

In the end, he had not devoured him. Seeing the god he'd killed resurrected by Lucifer's malice, seeing his family killed without Ragnarok, without fighting, Loki had not devoured him. This was a betrayal of them both, and neither had the heart to strike for it. Though the god had curled tight around his soul, wrapped ancient threads through his Grace as if he meant to strike, Loki had not used them to devour, but to support. To hold and cradle and cling. A trick, sleight of hand against the weapons of gods and angels. Loki.

In the end, it was Lucifer who slew him. His own brother. The first and last. Lucifer, the light-bringer, the Morningstar. Baldur's dark echo, as Gabriel had been Loki's light, and in perfect symmetry the one force had annihilated the other, even as it had before. His brother plunged a blade into the heart of his Grace, face twisted in fury and hate and regret, and twisted the knife at the last.

Gabriel had tried to leave, then. As his Grace destroyed itself. He had tried to pull free, tried to untangle himself from the god that bore him, and keep destruction for himself. He had tried to spare Loki what he could.

He never knew if he succeeded, before self annihilated, and he knew no more.

\---

The first and last time he saw them both, was in death. When his soul flew high in an agony of Grace, it was not his Father that he saw. Or not really. Only in the distance, could he sense that vast Presence. Distance in the future, in the world. Then and there, here and now, it was not his Father that greeted him.

It was them.

"Hold him gently, Son of Giants," she whispered from the darkness, infinite and soft, shining like blue stones. "He does not understand, yet. He is not awake. Do not hurt him."

"Can't _help_ it," Loki snarled, beneath him, through him. Curled around him, threads on threads, soul and Grace. "Stubborn bastard keeps _squirming_."

Kali laughed, at that, laughed at both of them. "He is trying to protect you, Loki. He is trying to hold destruction back. Keep it for himself." She smiled, deadly and rich, Destruction incarnate. "He is foolish, yet. He does not understand that destruction is not his to command, and will go where it wills. Where _I_ will."

Loki grunted, feeling Gabriel ebb against him in confusion, threading fingers through his Grace to soothe. "Then will it to bugger off, will you? He's all but frantic."

" _Not_ ," he whispered, bewildered, protesting. He was too confused to be frantic. Too fragmented to fight. They laughed, and curled deeper around him.

"Shush now," she whispered, lips against his. _Real_ lips, those of a body, of a form. And his, the same. Physical. Aching. Real. He gasped against her, blind, seeing only the reflection of her face, her blood-dark eyes. He shuddered, as the world unfolded against his senses, as he realised what he should have known.

Not dead. Not destroyed. Not yet.

"What ...?" he tried, but the voice cracked, and Loki took it for himself, rolling over his soul to touch the surface, tickling him in passing, laughing against him. Loki took him, let him feel the stretch, let him arch and ache and tremble against the goddess that held them. Kali purred, and threaded fingers in their hair.

" _Mine_ ," she whispered softly, mouth to mouth, breath to breath. "Blood of mine, little angel. Blood of mine, sweet child. And soul to the Son of Giants. Ours, Gabriel. Ours to hold. Ours to sustain. Your brother is a fool."

He blinked, Grace trembling between them, lying prone in blood and ashes and the remnants of his world. Lucifer was a fool. No arguments there, at least. But still, he didn't understand. He didn't ...

"You asked me to slay you, once," she said, very gently. "To destroy blood and sin, break you, unmake you. Never aloud. Never conscious. But you cannot hide destruction from me. You cannot hide the yearning. So I have unmade you, Gabriel. I have killed you, torn you, burned away the blood upon your hands. I have done that."

"You asked me to help you," Loki purred in his turn, a rich curl, laughing darkly through him. "To save my children, save my world. Stop the Ragnarok of gods _and_ of angels. You asked my body, and granted me your soul. Gave me permission, claimed you understood. You asked my help. I have given it."

He shook between them, aching and stretched, arched. "And ... and in return?" he asked, crushed and waiting. His Father was distant. But He smiled.

"Stay with us," Loki whispered. "Open yourself to us. We are gods, angel. We are ancient, eternal. We _know_ you. Come to us. Share with us. Live through us."

"Let us love you," she continued, reaching out with many hands, touching his shoulders, kissing his eyes, smiling blood-dark against his face. "All of you, every part of you. Hide no more, not from us. Spread yourself, Gabriel. Be part of us."

He shuddered, leapt as Loki tickled his Grace, as the god pushed and prodded and laughed until Gabriel couldn't help himself. Until his wings, six hundred deep, the width of a horizon, spread out through the plane of Earth, unfurling with a clap like thunder and a whisper of a sigh. They laughed in delight, coiling around him, Kali's hands reaching to pet and touch, to pinch and tease and tear bright blood through the feathers, spilling Grace. Inside him, Loki expanded, spread himself to fill every last inch of their body, forcing Gabriel to shine, to spread his Grace as he had his wings, to be pressed between them, the god within and the goddess without. To be engulfed. To be devoured.

"Say yes," she murmured. "Say yes, Gabriel. Come with us. Stand unbowed, against this upstart child that would destroy all we care for. Against this brother that would destroy you." She smiled, hungry and terrible and divine. "Let him know the price for laying a hand on my son, my lover, my land. Say yes, and let him know the cost of the wound he gave you."

"Say yes," Loki echoed, twinned in dark delight. "Let us show him how gods and angels go to war. Help us, Giant-killer. For the children we have lost and will lose again. For the family that have destroyed us. Say yes, and let's destroy them _back_. Not god or giant or angel, but _everything_. All of it, all at once."

Gabriel thought about it. Strung between them, between destruction and despair, between a blood-dark smile and a laughing malice, between mercy and vengeance and joy. Between she who protects and destroys, and he who makes you wonder which is which. Goddess and Trickster. Lover and friend. Kali and Loki.

He thought about it. Thought about humanity, and earth, and living and partying and playing, about justice and trickery and war. About humanity, about those that were _his_ , those that were theirs, those that his brother had no right to destroy. Thought about Messages that never came, and a Voice that had grown silent, and a Face that smiled at him anyway. Thought about Lucifer, thought about the pain as the brother he loved destroyed him. Thought about vengeance, about justice. About _fun_.

Thought about love, and desire, and yearning, and the feeling of the god threading through his soul, and the touch of her hands on his wings, and the rich, dark spool of desire.

"Yes," he whispered, very quietly. "Yes," he said, growing stronger. "Yes," he said, and smiled. "Yes. Let's ... get in the game, yes? Let's _play_."

Loki crowed inside him, a hard burst against Gabriel's Grace, a laugh like a kiss. Kali smiled, leaning in to kiss him, to worry his lips between her teeth. Pain and joy intermingled. The love of gods.

"Come then," she smiled, surging to her feet, tugging him after her. His foot slipped in the ashes of his past, and Loki caught it with a grin, straightening them, reaching out to catch her hand with theirs. On a whim, for a joke, the god twisted their form, made it echo hers, four hands to catch four hands, two for Gabriel, two for him, and the Trickster pumped feminine hips laughingly.

"Anywhere you want us, my lady!" he grinned, and Gabriel fanned wings in agreement. Giant-killer. Son of Giants.

"About time," said another voice, a deep bass rumble, scored by drink. Gabriel turned to the doorway, past the bodies of slain gods, to those that yet stood. To the Baron, smiling and at ease. To Ganesh, restored as if the Devil were but a memory, faint and fading. To the Tricksters, poking heads around corners, grinning at him.

"Been waiting for you, my boy," Coyote murmured, stepping through, pride of place beside the Baron. "I was wondering when those two were _ever_ going to get through to you."

Gabriel stared at them, eyebrows beetling upward, and felt Loki chuckle in his chest. "You've known all along, haven't you?" he growled. "The lot of you! You've known all along it was me in here, not just Loki!"

Coyote laughed at him. Not unkindly. "Angel, no offense, but we're _gods_. We weren't exactly born yesterday! Of _course_ we bloody knew!"

Kali smiled at him. "Do you think I would forget you?" she purred, leaning close, kissing his ear. "Do you think I would forget the Slayer of Giants who came upon me with bloody wings, with hands of blood and yearning in his heart? Do you think I could _forget_?"

"Can't trick a Trickster," Loki grinned, humour bubbling up through them. "I should know."

Gabriel stared at the lot of them. Face stiff and shocked and angry, disliking being fooled. For a little minute. For as long as he could hold it. But his face twitched uncontrollably, and not from Loki's influence. His lips curled at the corner and eyes flashed with reluctant delight.

"Oh, you got me," he murmured, humour bubbling up. "You got me _good_ , didn't you? This entire game, this entire mess ... you got me, and Lucifer just pissed off all the wrong people. Cut out deadweight, call in heavy. You _got_ me."

The gods grinned at him, whistling in studied innocence, and Gabriel had to laugh.

"Come here," he growled, catching Kali around the waist, sweeping her low, grinning into the face of Destruction. Inside, he grabbed hold of a god's soul, caught Loki wriggling in the threads of his Grace, and pressed him close. "Just so you know," he warned. "I'm going to get you for that. _Both_ of you. See if I don't."

"Yes," she smiled, fierce and immutable, shining with challenge. "You will. But later. After we have destroyed those who challenge us. After we have torn down the demon, and drank his blood. After we have _won_. Then, you may challenge us. Then you may _try_."

The archangel smiled, his own, fierce smile, Giant-killer, and swooped in to kiss her hungrily, savagery and respect, desire and love. He pulled Loki forward, pulled him through, let him share it. Made him part of it. Felt the god's dark delight and sweet compliance.

"Oh yes," he breathed, coming up for air, ignoring the catcalls of the ruder or more drunk in the audience. "I am going to get the pair of you." A waggle of eyebrows, a cheesy smirk, and a quiet hope that somewhere Shiva was looking the other way, or wouldn't mind. "One way ... or another."

Oh yes. Life was good when you were a god. Life was _good_.

**Author's Note:**

> Primary myths used, for those curious, are Gabriel's slaughter of the Nephilim, from the book of Enoch. The Great Flood, from the Bible. Kali's battle with the demon Raktabija, from the Devi Mahatmyam. Loki's killing of Baldur and subsequent punishment, from the Eddas. Loki and the mason's horse, whom he slept with to save his life and complete a task for the other Aesir, who told him they'd kill him if he failed, again from the Eddas. Incidentally, the horse was male, he did a genderbender shapeshift to become a mare, got pregnant and gave birth to an eigth-legged horse named Sleipnir as a result. Gabriel's probably right, and he did come off better this time around. Heh.


End file.
